Recherche

COSMO-SkyMed (Constellation of four Small Satellites for Mediterranean basin Observation) is a low-orbit Earth observation satellite system, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) and the Italian Ministry of Defense, and managed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI).

Mission
COSMO-SkyMed mission is to provide monitoring, surveillance and intelligence data to military customers as well as to civilian institutions and scientific communities for environmental monitoring (including prevention of natural disasters and topographic mapping in high-resolution among others).

Role of Thales Alenia Space
Thales Alenia Space is the prime contractor of the end-to-end system and leads an industrial team of small and medium sized Italian companies.
The contract for the first three satellites of the constellation - COSMO-SkyMed 1, 2 & 3 - has been awarded to our company by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in December 2004. The fourth satellite contract has been signed end of 2006.

Deeper in the program
COSMO-SkyMed system is based on a constellation of 4 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites in X-band and is able to observe anywhere on the Earth, whatever weather conditions are, day and night. COSMO-SkyMed satellites will quickly provide high resolution images in different dimension.

Planning
The four COSMO-SkyMed satellites are due for launch between 2007 and 2009 and the system should be fully operational by then. Thales Alenia Space, in agreement with its clients - ASI and the Italian Ministry of Defense - has selected Boeing Delta II carriers for the launch of the first two satellites. Both will be boosted into orbit from the Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg in California.